By Glenda Boza Ibarra (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – Cuban émigrés are inclined to stay connected with events of their country of origin, be it through contact with relatives, social networks or different media. Some, perhaps driven by a certain nostalgia, go further and take a look at to follow the series, soap operas and other programs which are broadcast on the island.
Cuban television, live?
The portal teveo.cu of the Institute of Information and Social Communication (formerly the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, ICRT), accommodates a repository of audiovisual materials produced by Cuban stations and tv centers. As well as, it offers live broadcasts of 79 stations produced by Cuba’s radio network.
Nonetheless, the highlight of this website is the live transmission of 5 channels: the teletext channel of the Cuban News Agency (ACN), Canal Caribe, Tele Rebelde, Cubavisión and Cubavisión Internacional.
Supposedly they could be seen live, but in point of fact–a fact confirmed in several countries and using several browsers–only the ACN channel and Cubavisión Internacional work. Those in search of to access the remainder of the channels invariably receive a message on their screen: the video couldn’t be loaded because of a network or server failure, or since the format is incompatible.
The Cuban television website (www.tvcubana.icrt.cu) offers the choice to look at these and other channels, including: educational and educational 2, Multivision, Key Channel, Havana Channel,and Cubavisión Plus (in HD). In truth, nonetheless, only live Cubavisión Internacional is out there. For the remainder, only the channel’s banner -or the identical message that appears on the Teveo platform- appears.
The multinational network Telesur, which is viewed in Cuba, could be seen through the webpage Multivision, but only through the time it is definitely being broadcast there.
Nor can live TV be accessed through the official page of the ex-ICR (https://www.icrt.gob.cu/live-tv/) or the platform Picta, Cuba’s so-call YouTube channel. That is despite the indisputable fact that each sites claim to supply this feature.
Some émigrés often watch Cuban TV by utilizing Kodi software, a multimedia entertainment center through which you possibly can access TV channels from various countries. But in keeping with recent user reports, Cuba’s TVC signal is tough to seek out.
Informational Spaces
Facebook is one other technique to access most Cuban newscasts and other television programs, even in direct transmission. The news programs Cubadebate y Mesa Redonda provide live broadcasts almost day by day through their Facebook pages. Individual news reports may also be found on Canal Caribe’s Facebook page or YouTube channel.
Other sources of programming are the Facebook pages and YouTube channels of other telecenters.
Within the case of sports, originally of the 61st National Baseball Series, some provinces took the initiative of broadcasting the games pass though their Facebook pages. Nonetheless, this was abruptly suspended.
In response to a publication of the TunasVisión telecenter, the National Series baseball games couldn’t be broadcast because of legal disputes over transmission rights.
In 2020, the World Baseball and Softball Confederation announced that its platform OTT GameTime.sport had acquired exclusive rights for the international transmission of the games of the 60th Cuban National Series.
On many occasions, Cuban television, and specifically the channel Tele Rebelde, has announced that they can’t transmit certain sports competitions because they lack the budget to purchase the published rights.
Because the management of Tele Rebelde explained in December of 2020, “To access many of the predominant competitions, you first must buy the published rights, something that has not been possible because of the difficult economic situation that our country is suffering. We apologize to you, and we’ll proceed to strive to enhance programming options.”
Series, soap operas and sundries
Many Cubans living abroad follow national soap operas, even the Brazilian ones, which are broadcast in prime time on Cubavisión.
There are also YouTube channels that concentrate on Cuban soap operas, adventure programs and dramatic series. On YouTube, you will discover programs ranging the police serial Your Own War, to probably the most recent episodes of Calendar and the soap opera Tú, that are uploaded scarcely minutes after they’re broadcast on the island.
To search out a lot of these programs, that are also broadcast in groups and on Telegram channels, you simply must google them.
As well as, it is feasible to seek out materials produced in Cuba on such sites as Picta or La mochila. These are managed by the Youth Computer Club as an alternative choice to the “weekly package.” These sites include each Cuban and foreign content that’s downloadable, and that’s organized into different categories similar to series, movies, documentaries, children’s, sports, humor, etc.
Due to US sanctions against Cuba and the tense relations between the 2 countries, there isn’t any way for Cuba to acquire broadcast rights for US programming. This implies, in keeping with a 2013 BBC report, that the US content that’s broadcast there’s pirated.
The embargo also affects the copyrights of Cuban artists who cannot receive the income from their work that’s due them.
As Kenia Padrón, the principal specialist of the Department of International Relations of the Cuban Agency for Music Copyright (ACDAM) explained, “until relations are normalized, neither Cubans nor US residents may have the potential of receiving the royalties for his or her work.”
